I think this is a very critical question.
One of the things I dealt with when I was chief—and this was an issue that was handed down to me from former chiefs.... We called this land that was taken away from us “the hole in the middle of the table”. That land was taken away from us by the provincial government in the 1800s. We ended up purchasing that property when I was chief in the 1990s, so it took virtually 100 years to resolve it.
One of the arguments that the federal and provincial governments put forward was that, because they gave us gifts, that was adequate consultation and the Indians were happy, which meant we had given up the land. In our community, we know and understand fully what surrender means, and obviously, we didn't surrender those lands nor those interests.
Some of the things that are critically important when we start to deal with the whole question of land back are not only the comprehensive claims processes but also the specific claims processes and expediting those processes. A lot of those lands were taken away from us under circumstances that, ultimately, were suspect because they were predicated on the fact that we couldn't raise money to defend ourselves and that we couldn't have the legal advisers at our disposal to defend our rights. These are issues that I think are separate and apart from a lot of the specific claims and, therefore, comprehensive claims issues we face across the country.
When we talk about the notion that there should be a higher standard of consultations, that's absolutely right, because first nations had these rights taken away from them by none other than Duncan Campbell Scott in 1927. He was the Department of Indian Affairs agent at that time. He worked for 50 years under that department and had 15 hours of presentations to a committee just like this, where my leaders had 15 minutes. Under any circumstances, that's wrong.